Here they are – the top 20 tips for successful coaching. Doesn’t matter if you are a life coach, wellness coach, executive coach, or coaching an NFL team, these top 20 tips for successful coaches will give you a leg up on the competition.

The Top 20 Tips For Successful Coaching

1. Ask yourself – why am I coaching? At the very top of the top 20 tips for successful coaching is this highly personal question. Know who you are, what your philosophy is, and why you want to be a coach before you start coaching.
2. Get educated. Take the right course for your needs and niche. The more you know, the better you’ll be.
3. Get accredited. Take a course from an accredited program. It’s more professional and as the coaching profession becomes more professional, an accreditation will matter more.
4. Work with a mentor coach. Many aspiring coaches skip this step in the education process, but it is too valuable to skip.
5. Improve your listening skills. Listening is the most important skill for a coach; you should understand whole body listening – hear the words and tone, see the body language, and understand the context.
6. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Improvisation works at times, but you should always have a plan – for your career, your practice, and your clients.
7. Keep improving. Whether you have been a coach for twenty seconds or twenty years, you must always strive to get better.
8. Be confident. It’s a difficult skill to improve and master, but confidence is one of the foundations of your coaching skills. If you aren’t confident about your coaching skills, your clients sure as hell won’t feel confident that you can provide them with the outcomes they seek.
9. Work smart. Hire someone, improve your technology, do something to make your practice run more efficiently so you can spend more time with more clients and make more money.
10. Set your fees correctly. Know what your competition charges and set a good value for your services – not too high and not too low.
11. Be fearless. No list of top 20 tips for successful coaching should be without this one. Conquer your fears, attack your fears, and don’t be afraid to try new things, explore new options, or changes coaching niches.
12. Create a website. Hey – it’s the 21st century and people’s lives revolve around the computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
13. Learn social media. Hey – it’s the 21st century and people’s lives revolve around Facebook, Twitter, and the next big social media site to come along.
14. Bring people to your website. Remember Field of Dreams? If you build it, they will come – that doesn’t work with websites. Use articles, social media promotion, SEO, email lists to bring people to your website, and other creative tips to entice people to your website and your coaching.
15. Find alternative streams of income. The more pistons pumping in your practice, the more power it has. Books, DVDs, seminars, email coaching, group coaching – there are many options to pump up your income.
16. Ask for feedback. Good or bad, all feedback helps you improve as a coach.
17. Learn how to market. Marketing is the lifeblood, and the heart and soul of your successful practice. No list of top 20 coaching tips for successful coaching would dare skip this one.
18. Become a person of value by adding value to your clients’ lives. Make an impact and you will be valuable.
19. Understand and work at time management. This goes along with #9 on the list of top 20 tips for successful coaching. Know how to focus your own activities and when to outsource. Time is literally money in business – don’t throw it away!
20. You probably won’t see this last tip on many coaching lists, but to be successful, this final tip on the list of top 20 tips for successful coaching is crucial. Manage your clients like a coach and your business like a business. Sounds simple, right? But, not every coach does it and those that don’t, may be out of the coaching profession too quickly.

Give this strategy a try and see for yourself that it works. If you liked this coaching tip, leave a comment or use the handy bookmark buttons below to share it with others on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. Thanks!

Fred Philips
Business Coach
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